A Sticky Business
by Lady Razorsharp
Summary: In which a careless moment has an odd consequence...


A Sticky Business

By the Lady Razorsharp

AN: Holmes and Watson are the property of one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I am only borrowing them for a while. Poor chaps.

March 31st, 2005

Somewhere in California

The office was, to put it lightly, a disaster area.

However, the young woman seated at her desk seemed to be totally oblivious to the disarray, her wide blue eyes fixed squarely on the flat piece of metal, glass and plastic that acted as her window to the world. Her fingers were a blur, tapping out a maddening rhythm as she carefully crafted her latest work of fanfiction.

Vaguely in the background, the woman heard the calls of her officemates as they said goodnight to one another.

One voice stood out above the noise of the back office door opening and closing. "Hey, Lindz. Make sure Indy goes home tonight, okay?"

"Don't worry, Kiki, I will." To that end, Lindz—short, dark-haired, bespectacled—stuck her head in the alcove that constituted the office of the wayward administrative assistant. Lindz glanced with amusement at the Japanese toys, the Hello Kitty memorabilia, the hiragana chart framed on the wall. There was no nameplate on the wall, but there was no question as to who occupied this corner of the building.

"Indy," she called softly. "Indya, come up for air, okay?"

There was no reply save another assault on the poor defenseless keyboard.

"Indya!"

The writer spun around in her ergonomic chair, her short blonde hair whipping against her cheek with the motion. "What?"

Lindz laughed. "Aren't you done yet? It's time to go home." She stepped forward to glance at the screen. "Oh, I get it. You're writing about Sherlock Holmes again, aren't you?"

Indya smiled sheepishly. "Guilty as charged." She turned back and let her eyes wander over the words on the screen. "It's a disease, I suppose."

There was no condemnation in the dark-haired woman's hazel eyes; she knew her officemate too well to be surprised at the level of Indya's devotion to her craft. Besides, she had read some of the stories that were lying in a pile on Indya's desk while her officemate was at lunch one day, and she knew they were good. "When are you gonna publish some of this stuff?" Lindz asked, gesturing to the screen.

Here it came, the usual response. "Oh, it's only fanfiction. I can't get paid for it. Although," Indya added wistfully, "the characters _are_ considered in the public domain now, so it might be possible…" She trailed off, eyes dreamy.

The dark-haired woman shook her head. "You'd better do something with it." She checked her watch. "Well, I've got to go feed my puppy dog, so I'll see you tomorrow. Don't stay here too late; the timer's set for the lights to go off at 8:00."

Already halfway to Baker Street, Indya nodded absently. "Mm. Ja ne," she called. See you.

The door clumped shut, then they key scratched in the lock and footsteps retreated into the distance. The quiet descended like an insulating curtain around her, and Indya knew nothing of her own time for a long while.

_Why is it so dark?_ Indya wondered idly, pulling herself up with a yawn. Then she shot upright in her chair, knocking over her pencil cup with a clatter. Leaning back, she glanced across the hall into another officemate's cubby, blurry eyes trying to make sense of the luminescent bits of red emanating from the digital clock: _10:06 pm_.

"Oh, no," Indya breathed, hurriedly gathering up her purse and trying to locate her keys in the dark (there was no use trying the switch; the timer had rendered every single one in the building useless until six the next morning). She turned her attention to the avalanche of papers, pencils, binders, and books, deciding that the best course of action would be to stack everything in one big pile and deal with it when she had more light. The thickness of the book beneath her fingers told her it was the beloved dog-eared copy of _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ that never left her desk, and she stacked it on top of the pile. She turned to leave, stepping on something that had been knocked to the floor in her haste. Bending down to pick it up, she realized it was a small, flexible square; closer examination revealed it to be a 3x3 Post-It Note pad, and she tossed it on top of the worn book.

_I'll never hear the end of this one,_ she thought ruefully, tearing out of the office as if the Hound were after her.

1 April, 1905

Somewhere in London

Watson emerged from his room looking forward very much to breaking his fast with some of Mrs. Hudsons' lovely cooking. Holmes, who rarely took more than a piece of dry toast and a cigarette in the mornings when he was in the throes of a case, was a source of constant consternation for the poor woman, and Watson couldn't help a derisive snort in the direction of his friend's empty chair.

It was as he was reaching for the teapot that Watson noticed something quite strange about the lid of the sugar bowl. Settling the calico cosy back over the brown potbellied teapot, Watson reached tentatively for the small slip of yellow paper that was, impossibly, perched upon the china seemingly of its own volition. He tugged on the scrap of paper, and found that it peeled away quite easily. Further investigation revealed a sticky substance on the reverse side, which, to his irritation, clung just as readily to his skin as it had the sugar bowl. He gave his hand an experimental shake; a brief flash of what he must look like appeared in his minds eye—an intelligent subject of His Majesty, making ridiculous contortions and trying to dislodge a bit of paper from his hand.

_Holmes would have a field day, seeing me caper about like St. Vitus' Dance,_ the thought dawned on him, and with that impetus, Watson grasped the paper in the fingers of his free hand and—making sure to avoid the infernal substance—tore it from his hand. Surprisingly, there was no answering sting, and he rubbed his formerly trapped fingertips together to find none of the residue that would have accompanied rubber cement or spirit gum.

Watson realized there was writing on the paper; he had not worked with Sherlock Holmes for these many years without being able to recognize his friend's copperplate hand at a glance.

_Watson,_

_I have gone out for a bit but will be back shortly. Don't wait breakfast on my account._

_H._

An innocuous enough message, to be sure, and rather typical, but it was the method in which it had been delivered that scraped Watson's usually steady nerves raw. He forced himself to swallow gluey mouthfuls of the now-cold porridge, not even bothering to add his customary heaping teaspoon of sugar and splash of thick cream. Whatever this thing was, it was not normal, and he had a sinking feeling that he would need all of his strength to face the inevitable investigation.

April 1, 2005

Somewhere in California

The pile on her desk didn't look quite so bad by morning's light, Indya thought as she dropped her purse and dayplanner on her much-abused desk. She set herself to finish the tidying job, humming _221B Baker Street_ under her breath. The telephone rang while she was completing her morning task, and she reached for her pencil and Post-It-Note pad by habit. However, the Post-It Note pad was missing from its place, and as the phone was continuing to bleat, she shrugged and grabbed up a small legal pad instead of the familiar yellow square.

_Funny, I could have sworn I picked that up last night,_ she frowned, picking up the handset and stuffing it between her shoulder and her ear.

"Founders' College, this is Indya, how can I help you?"

1 April 1905

Somewhere in London

Watson had managed to hide the yellow square of paper from Mrs. Hudson when she came in to clear the breakfast dishes. The long-suffering landlady lifted the lid on the porridge tureen and, peering inside to see its volume only reduced by half, let the lid fall with a sharp clink.

"Tsk, tsk," she said to no one in particular. "And what's worse, he's not even here to scold."

"What I had of it was quite good," Watson remarked, though the note secreted in the book at his elbow had made certain that her lovingly prepared repast now made him feel as if he had swallowed a lead ingot.

"Ah, thank you kindly, Doctor," Mrs. Hudson smiled, gathering the well-used china into a neat stack.

Watson nodded, scandalized at his own wish for Mrs. Hudson to be quick about her business and leave him to examine the note.

After many agonizing moments, Mrs. Hudson picked up the tray and made for the door. The door, it seemed, had other ideas, as it flew open under the enthusiastic pressure of Sherlock Holmes. Mrs. Hudson let out a squeak of surprise as Holmes, carried by his momentum, grabbed up the tray to avoid impaling the poor woman with it and lifted it over her head.

"Hallo, up!" Holmes exclaimed, his spotlessly shined black oxfords finding purchase on the worn carpet just in time to bring him to a standstill. "You really ought to be more careful, Mrs. Hudson," he said, backing up a step and replacing the tray in her hands. "What was so absorbing as to mistake the sound of my arrival?"

It was Watson who came to the poor lady's rescue. "Holmes, just because you know everyone in London by the way they climb the steps, doesn't mean—"

Holmes was shocked. "It could very well mean both of your lives someday, my dear fellow!" he spluttered. "I should make both of you read my monograph on the particulars of the transmission of sound and vibration—"

Mrs. Hudson had stood mutely through this ordeal, having long since been accustomed to Holmes' pronouncements. Watson cleared his throat meaningfully, halting Holmes' tirade in mid-sentence, and opened the door. "That'll be all for now, Mrs. Hudson, thank you," Watson said, doctor and landlady sharing a tiny smirk.

"So," Holmes said, rubbing his long, white hands together as he did when he was in the throes of a deductive frenzy, "I gather you received my message this morning, eh, Watson?"

An image of Watson's Army revolver came to mind, so loaded was that question. "Yes," said the one who usually wielded that well-used weapon. "I must tell you that the method of delivery you chose…gave me no small amount of unease." He opened his book and plucked the little square from the endpaper, laying the sticky bit carefully on the table between them.

They looked at in silence. Watson glanced up at Holmes, who was positively thrumming with excitement. Heartened as he was to see Holmes in such good spirits, Watson was still not convinced that the paper was altogether innocent. He braced himself for the inevitable onslaught.

"What do you make of it, Watson?"

This was one time Holmes would not have to drag observations out of him, the doctor thought ruefully. "Small, cleanly cut square—perfectly square, I might add—of thin, opaque paper, tinted yellow," Watson recited. "No watermark or sign of manufacture."

"And," Holmes added, his voice thrillingly deep at the lower end of his baritone register, "there's the matter of the glue on its reverse." He steepled his fingers in front of his lean face, elbows on the table. "A most curious substance, is it not?"

"Quite," Watson returned, suppressing a shudder at the memory of the thing sticking to his skin. "It seems to adhere to any surface."

"Not any surface, my dear Watson," Holmes informed him, pulling open the drawer at his elbow and bringing forth a great sheaf of the notes, all stuck together like barnacles on a ship. "They will not stick—with great reliability, anyway—to cloth, carpet, or any surface marred by dirt or ash. They seem to perform best on non-porous surfaces—plaster, wood, glass—"

"China," Watson muttered.

"—China, yes, thank you—leather, and paper, of course." Holmes plopped the papers on the table, where their arrangement reminded Watson of nothing less than a honeycomb. The thought of honeycombs brought thoughts of bees, and in turn a remembrance of Holmes' declaration that he would someday retire to Sussex and keep bees. Watson wondered idly if now would be a good time for that to happen, but Holmes seemed as keen as ever.

"You've analysed it, of course?" Watson asked as a matter of form.

"While you slept, my dear fellow, the secrets of chemistry were unfolding before me." Holmes leapt to his feet and marched to the evil-smelling corner of the study, where he picked up a sheaf of (blessedly loose) foolscap and scanned his calculations. "Alas," he chimed, "it is beyond the powers of the materials I have at my disposal here to analyse it completely." He tossed the papers over his head in exasperation, where they landed in a snowfall on the Turkish rug.

Now Watson was well and truly curious; few things there were that lay beyond Holmes' ken. "What did you come up with?"

Holmes thoughtfully plucked his pipe from its stand and filled the bowl with black shag from the slipper hanging on the mantel. "I have good reason to believe that the glue is completely synthetic," he mused, coaxing yellow-grey clouds from his pipe. "It does not match any natural substance." He settled his lean form into his favorite chair, puffing all the while.

"Where did you find this peculiar paper, if I may ask?"

Holmes took the pipe from between his teeth and regarded Watson with a puzzled stare. "I must be slipping," he murmured after a moment's consideration. "I confess I haven't the slightest idea." He turned back to the fire, and Watson knew that the workings of Holmes' mind were crowding out all thoughts of coherent speech.

The doctor chuckled to himself. "Surely you're not allowing for the impossible, Holmes," he chided his friend good-naturedly. "Things like that just don't appear out of thin air."

"Mm," Holmes said by way of reply, his grey gaze locked within the depths of the flame flickering in the grate.

Watson regarded Holmes with a fond smile. He had no fear of his friend turning to his melancholy violin or the dreadful needle for a long while, not with Holmes' mind so thoroughly engaged upon the curious little bit of paper.

Waiting until Holmes was ten minutes into his musing—where nothing less than a gunshot would disturb the great detective—Watson took the yellow square and pasted it back into his book as a souvenir of the occasion.

The next day, a true case diverted Holmes' attention away from the notes, and Watson quietly asked Mrs. Hudson to burn them in the kitchen stove.

1 April 1985

Christies of London

"The next lot, ladies and gentlemen, is a set of books once owned by the late Dr. John H. Watson. Yes, the fabled chronicler of Sherlock Holmes, the very same," the auctioneer nodded to the murmurs that raced around the room. "All in very good condition, all very—here, what's this?" he exclaimed, opening the cover of the first book. The auctioneer's face purpled, which brought his assistant over at a run.

"What is it, sir?"

The auctioneer plucked a small yellow square from the endpaper. "'Watson, I have gone out for a bit, but will be back shortly. Don't wait breakfast on my account. H.'" The two men shared a glance, and the auctioneer cleared his throat. "This is someone's idea of a joke, no doubt."

The assistant, relieved that whatever had happened was not his fault, gave a sheepish grin. "Right. It's not like they had Post-It-Notes in 1905."

End


End file.
